


Aftermath

by BlackRose



Category: Avatar the Last Airbender - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:59:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRose/pseuds/BlackRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may be insane, but she's still his sister and he still loves her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

The next time he sees her, it is obvious that something is wrong.

Even apart from the fact that she's lost so much weight--and she was slender to begin with--it doesn't look as if she's been given the chance to bathe since their last visit, and she moves at the end of her chains stiffly--painfully. Worse still, though, is the way she looks when he comes to the door of her cell, and stops a moment to study her before he speaks to her-she sees him, and starts, then goes rigid and her breathing turns shallow. All the color drains out of her face. Her eyes widen and glass over--fear.

It is the one emotion, he knows by now, that even the most insidious of liars cannot convincingly fake. Real terror like he saw in her eyes, sheer blind, all-consuming panic---even the greatest actor who ever lived couldn't do that.

She doesn't want to tell him, of course--only shreds now remain of her pride, but what tatters endure, are strong. But he persists--patience in his dealings with others is a carefully-cultivated skill he has aquired in recent months as he struggles to rebuild what his father's empire destroyed. The least hint of anger shown in a moment of weakness, might well demolish that shaky bit of trust his people had gained in him. She is nervous, rocking herself backwards and forwards, and skimming a bandaged hand through her greasy mane as she shakes her head over and over, no.

She doesn't want to relive it--doesn't even want to remember it. If she can sleep, just sleep, perhaps when she wakes it will all be a dream. A nightmare, that's all. In her sleep-struggle she got the bruises inside that make it hurt so much to move. It was an Old Hag's hands that were everwhere--there must have been five or more of them, pinning her wrists to the floor and her legs wide. Foul reeking voices above, that insist it's pointless to struggle; her powers are null here. No use crying to her brother, one adds as it crushes her mouth with a poison kiss, who would believe her? She is a liar; everyone knows that....

On and on, until she can take no more and it spills free like a river. Choking hands, the evil words....one of them liked to stroke her belly as it rumbled and then force her head back--what was thrust past her lips was not food. If she wouldn't swallow for him, she got no water that day. Transfers from one side of the cell to another were accomplished by a series of kicks and slaps. Sometimes a collar was slipped around her neck, and she'd be led up and down the hallways on a leash, walked like a dog. They wouldn't let her bathe--sometimes her hands and ankles were shackled, and then she couldn't even move.

He listens, never interrupting despite the righteous anger that flares within his eyes. He lets her talk until she is exhausted, her hands shaking with the effort to neither vomit nor scream. She has yet to shed tears though, he realizes, and whether it is simply the way she was raised or if she just has nothing more to cry with he has no idea. She flinches with an in-drawn breath as he leans close to kiss her forehead.

"Hang on just a bit longer, little sister--I'm going to get you out of here."

Her lips twitch; she can't decide whether to believe him. He leaves the cell--more than half considering simply melting her bonds and taking her with him. But the time is not yet. He is going to need help to overcome all the guards and take the 'doctors' properly prisoner. So he returns to the capital city, wasting no time in drawing allies to him, setting plans in place. When he returns, it is with his wife and their friends and allies in tow. All are armed--heavily. The avenging army has come.

Ty Lee proves more valuable to the operation than one might expect--she moves silently as a shadow, nimbly as a monkey going among the cells and letting the prisoners free. She dodges blows as if she's made of smoke, then with a kick to the correct pressure point, locks the opponent's body down in a paralytic rictus.

Mai sweeps in behind her like an icy wind, onynx eyes holding nothing but a touch of amusement as she wards off the facility's security forces with a devastatingly-accurate (and brutally-sharp) shuriken dagger. Zuko had not planned to bring her along; it had been much to his surprise that she spoke up to volunteer.

'She is my friend,' is all she would offer as by way of explanation, and that simple answer was enough. Together the women clear the way for the Fire Prince, whos hands and eyes blaze with a carefully-controlled burn. He lashes out only at the last few guards, singeing where he can and trying to do as little permanant harm as possible--though the temptation to inflict far worse is great. Especially when he reaches her cell and he sees her huddled up there again, bleeding anew from places he'd rather not consider. Her eyes are ringed dark in a pale face.

 

She doesn't react to his touch; her gaze is nowhere and anywhere else. He sinks to his knees and quickly melts the chains that bind her to the wall. She slowly turns to look at him, it takes several confused blinks before comprehension dawns.

"ZuZu," she breathes, and he gathers her close to him--Agni, she is as light as a bird!--and covers her with his cloak.

"I told you so, didn't I?," he teases, trying to keep his tone light. Levity, to try and coax her heart and mind out of that dark place and into the light. Mai and Ty Lee are waiting for them in the hallway. They have left no corridor unsearched, no guard or worker unvanquished. The vile men are even now being herded up and taken captive by the Fire Prince's soldiers. The prisoners huddle together, unsure where to go or what to do. What is freedom? They no longer recall.

Azula turns her face away from the setting sunlight; she buries herself in her brother's chest and refuses to let go of him as he mounts his horse. It breaks his heart to see how she clings to him now, when before she so despised him as to try and kill him. Those men have broken her. They waste no time in returning to the Fire Nation.

At the palace he has assembled the best female healers in the country, and he reluctantly gives her over to their care. His mother smiles at him, smoothing a hand over his scar in that way she always had of reassuring him.

"She will be all right. Go. Do what must be done."

Then she turns away to tend to her daughter--trying to make up for years of seeming neglect.

Zuko draws a shaky centering breath, and turns and rides back the way he came.

No one in the Palace is surprised by the glow on the horizon late into the night. Not one question is raised when the young Fire Lord returns home at midnight with sooton his face. The royal family does their best to move on with their lives, and the rebuilding efforts continue. Azula is kept in the palace, heavily sedated so as to harm no one. Under her mother's care her eyes become less dull, her skin less pale. She regains her strength, and begins to eat and speak again.

In spring she delivers a tiny, twisted son. He has a thatch of black hair, and his eyes are blue as ice. Ursa takes him away, ostensibly to bathe him. The cloth is over his face....the Fire Lord stays her hands. He takes the child to his wife, and their 'discussion' rises and falls in waves behind the closed door. At last it is decided.

His birth is announced a week later, a great celebration going up throughout the country. All hail the birth of Zu-Lin, the Fire Lord's son!


End file.
